The Politico says, “CLIMATE BILL BACK FROM THE DEAD, complete with carbon price,” but the smart money — or at least the sadder but wiser money — says team Obama is just not that into it.

Back then, my sources gave the chances for passage this year of comprehensive energy legislation that included a cap on utility greenhouse gas emissions as 50-50. But that presupposed a very hard push — messaging and arm-twisting — from Obama and his team. Since that hasn’t happened, we’re now probably at best 50-50 for any energy bill at all!

Senate Democratic leaders are set to roll the dice this month on a comprehensive energy and climate bill, including a cap on greenhouse gases from power plants, even though they don’t yet have the 60 votes needed to move the controversial plan.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) confirmed Tuesday that he would gamble on the high-stakes legislation “” much as he undertook health care and Wall Street reform “” that for now remains in the rough-draft stage but that will soon be the subject of intense negotiations.

“Whatever I bring to the floor, I want to get 60 votes,” Reid told POLITICO shortly after announcing his strategy for a full Senate debate as early as the week of July 26.

Reid confirmed the bill will have four parts: an oil spill response; a clean-energy and job-creation title based on work done in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; a tax package from the Senate Finance Committee; and a section that deals with greenhouse gas emissions from the electric utility industry.

“In this stage, we’ve not completed it. But we’re looking at a way that’s making sure when we talk about pollution, it’ll focus just on the utility sector,” Reid said.

But the question is, who precisely is going to twist arms to get 60 votes. The Politico’s own “Whip count” lists five Democrats as “Probably No’s.” These Profiles in Cowardice are:

In any case, at least five R’s are needed, and Reid can’t deliver 3/4 of the likes of Lugar and Voinovich and Gregg and Brown — assuming one gets the needle dancer and his backup singers from Maine. And in case you thought those singers were all on key, here’s Politics Daily from Tuesday:

Although Democrats point most frequently to Maine’s Sen. Olympia Snowe as a possible Republican ally on the issue, Snowe she said Tuesday that she’s not interested in the job of winning over other GOP senators.

“I’m not sure I’m the gateway to anything,” she said, adding that she’s open — but not committed to — supporting a utility-only carbon cap.

“I think there is a possibility of an energy bill with efficiency and conservation and renewables, and perhaps from there you could reach a point of addressing utilities-only,” she said. “Even then, I’m not so sure given the skepticism that’s been expressed by so many about pricing carbon…. First and foremost, you don’t want to pose a greater cost on consumers in any way.”

Yeah, nobody’s gonna be writing her up in an updated Profiles in Courage either.

But that letter was two weeks ago. As the Politico itself reported today:

Lieberman told reporters that the push toward the 60 votes would require more effort from President Barack Obama and his top advisers.

“We want them more engaged,” Lieberman said.

Obama administration officials are already in the middle of the fight. Reid, for example, met Tuesday with White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. But the issue didn’t come up when 15 top Senate Democrats, including Reid, met with Obama at the White House on Tuesday, said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

“It was not a specific legislative agenda meeting,” Durbin said. “It was a meeting about our end game here as the session draws to a close and what we plan on doing together.”

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs insisted that the lack of talk about energy and climate during the president’s meeting with senators shouldn’t be interpreted as a lack of interest by the administration.

“Energy is something, obviously, that will come up before the Senate leaves, as will a number of things, like [Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena] Kagan and “” and other things,” Gibbs told reporters. “I expect the president will be active in that debate.”

I expected that too — a year ago, six months ago, even a few weeks ago! Seriously, Gibbs, you can only hit the snooze alarm so many times before the whole damn alarm clock breaks.

It is ironic that a man his opponents accused of being some sort of uber-big-government socialist takes a laissez-faire approach to defining issue of our time and of his presidency.

So, at the risk of mixing my metaphors like so much dispersant on an oil gusher, this is not a game that you can win by sitting back and shooting a few three pointers at the end after the other team has put up a 30-point lead.

The clock is being run out, folks. Put in your play maker now and give him the ball. Otherwise nobody will actually think you were ever interested in winning.

Lieberman told reporters that the push toward the 60 votes would require more effort from President Barack Obama and his top advisers.

“We want them more engaged,” Lieberman said.

Obama administration officials are already in the middle of the fight. Reid, for example, met Tuesday with White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. But the issue didn’t come up when 15 top Senate Democrats, including Reid, met with Obama at the White House on Tuesday, said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

“It was not a specific legislative agenda meeting,” Durbin said. “It was a meeting about our end game here as the session draws to a close and what we plan on doing together.”

At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs insisted that the lack of talk about energy and climate during the president’s meeting with senators shouldn’t be interpreted as a lack of interest by the administration.

“Energy is something, obviously, that will come up before the Senate leaves, as will a number of things, like [Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena] Kagan and “” and other things,” Gibbs told reporters. “I expect the president will be active in that debate.”

42 Responses to The Politico says, “CLIMATE BILL BACK FROM THE DEAD, complete with carbon price,” but the smart money — or at least the sadder but wiser money — says team Obama is just not that into it.

Could you help me with this one. I understand the filibuster. I get that. But why do the Democrats go after this, seamingly, impossible goal to get 60 votes? Didn’t Bush get his legislation passed with far less that 60 votes in the Senate?

“Back then, my sources gave the chances for passage this year of comprehensive energy legislation that included a cap on utility greenhouse gas emissions as 50-50. But that presupposed a very hard push — messaging and arm-twisting — from Obama and his team. Since that hasn’t happened, we’re now probably at best 50-50 for any energy bill at all!”

At the time, my reply prior to your follow-up post here was that there would likely be no climate legislation completed with any measures to curtail carbon emissions during the present congressional session. It now seems that any bill that could possibly pass muster under the Obama promise would most likely only contain some tepid measures for incentives towards alternatives. Taking up anything after the mid-term elections would certainly not even get that much done, if anything.

So here we are once again potentially looking at several more years of inaction. At what point do the predictions of, we only have 10 years to make major global decisions with regards towards remedies for climate change, end and head for the hills begin? I suggest we are already at that point and yet we’re all still peering down the barrel of the cannon.

I wonder about what Rick says too, for the Dems maybe Reid could tell them they’re free to vote no on the bill, but not free to procedurally obstruct. That’s how they did it back in the Bush days. That’s how the repubs still do it, “you have to be with us on procedural motions” is how McConnell plays the game…That being said, Reid almost certainly lacks the balls to play hardball with the “maybe nots”…

don’t be disheartened by the senate’s conduct, nor by Obama’s intransigence toward any internationally significant US action.
Globally the game is far from lost.

If, as seems likely, there is no significant US bill this year, the probability is that much of the rest of the world will agree a treaty without American participation in its commitments to national emissions allocations and in its incentives (such as the global trading of carbon emissions permits and preferential terms for technology exports).

Down the road, once the US has been effectively climate-hammered to its senses, it will have no option but to play catch-up in order to accede to the treaty.

Rick, right up to January 2009 it was common for Congress Members to cross party lines on particular bills. The most centrist Democrats or Republicans would vote with the opposite side at times, allowing the majority to pass new bills.

Filibusters were a rare event, a tool reserved for only the most extreme situation.

Between 1950 and 1969 there were a total of 20 filibusters. That’s a total from both parties. About one a year.

All that changed when the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007. In 2007 – 2008 Republicans filibustered or threatened to filibuster 139 pieces of legislation. In 2009 Republicans filibustered 69 pieces of legislation.

And during all these years Republicans block voted “NO!” to anything except bills for things like military budgets.

I know you ‘get filibusters’, but use them as a guide to how much Republicans have worked to stop almost everything Democrats have wanted to do.

This is not how our government has worked in the past. In the past the minority has recognized that they lost the previous election and tried to steer legislation rather than to engage in a wholesale attempt to make it fail.

When the Republicans filibuster, why don’t the Democrats make them filibuster? Failing to vote for cloture doesn’t mean the death of a bill, it just means that debate continues–if Republicans actually had to talk for 24 hours straight, possibly they would become more selective in what they chose to filibuster.

I think the media believe if they report the truth and it conflicts with the right wing nutocracy, they’ll be criticized. And they’re hypersensitive to audience criticism because of the shocking collapse of the print and over the air broadcast journalism business. They don’t want to be the next one to be out of work. Example, if Reid said any of the crap that comes out of former and likely future presidential candidate Ron Paul’s mouth, the press would be all over it 24/7.

How can Obama’s administration use the bully pulpit to lead this nation when the press won’t let him? He’s trying to lead with both arms, one leg tied and his mouth duct taped shut by the press.

I certainly see how the American governance model would be so attractive. You only need 40 Senators to have an effective veto. Given that the smallest 23 states in terms of population account for less than 20% of the total population.

I also like the feature that has held up any number of appointments by President Obama both in his administration and the judiciary even 18 months after he assumed office.

Most foreigners realize the US is incapable of taking any serious action on climate change given its political culture and institutions. At least not yet, perhaps in 10 years after some major droughts cause major crop failures in the US or something similar . Until then expect more climate change talk fests like the last one in Copenhagen. Unfortunately in 10 years we may have already passed more tipping points than the ones we already have.

George: Your point about nothing major happening until we’re paying a steep price from climate impacts is precisely the way I think things will play out. It bothers me deeply to say this, because it’s clear we’ll wind up paying a much steeper price than if we took action earlier.

Between the dysfunctional state of US politics (as exemplified by the five Dems and Snowe) and the “growth before environment” position expressed by both China and India, I can’t see how we can escape the conclusion that things will get much worse, climate-wise, before humanity as a whole takes any meaningful action.

I’ve been reduced to hoping for a quick Climate Pearl Harbor event that pushes us into action without harming too many individuals. How pathetic is that?

you may well be right that China will forgo the chance to leave America out in the cold as the sole major nation not participating – and it might be argued that this would be for the best – with both acceding at a later date. – In the interim China, as a command economy, would be free to peak and then cut its emissions far faster than the sclerotic US if it so chose, thereby showing good faith to the international community while also increasing its technical capacities and markets.

It has to be observed that many nations are furious with US stonewalling and its deceitful hiding behind the senate’s corruption – while Obama has done nothing. Climate is already regarded as a deadly serious issue by many nations, not least my own, with its conditional offer of a 42% cut off 1990 by 2020.

Consider that if the Gulf stream were lost, Britain would be left with a climate somewhere between that of Labrador and southern Alaska, trying to feed sixty million with little if any viable farming, and with an untenable housing stock and infrastructure.

OTOH for Spain the threat is the inverse – if warming continues and the Gulf Stream is not lost, then the Sahara Desert will continue its inexorable migration northward – the Spanish have been officially abandoning droughted-out villages since the ’70s, and water resources are becoming critical across much of the country.

And these are just two wealthy industrialised European nations – ask poor nations’ delegates, off the record, for their views and you are likely to get an earful.

Thus while a very significant sub-global treaty seems to me more than likely, I’d observe that it must still be done well to be worth doing. In this context Obama would be wise to avoid provoking punitive measures by playing the spoiler. Having already shot himself in one foot by recklessly upholding Bush’s “Brinkmanship of Inaction,” he cannot afford to shoot himself in the other foot too.

Lewis
I don’t think the broader European picture looks that good. My country, Denmark, used to be a leader in responsible climate policies. It no longer is. After the present coalition took power in 2001 it began to undo the initiatives of the previous government. Since then it’s rhetoric has become greener, but in reality it’s playing a wait and see game, and instead of trying to go beyond the inadequate EU guidelines, it has limited itself to fulfilling them, and is having a hard time doing even that. More important countries, France and Germany, are focusing more on deficit reduction and have cut previous climate investment plans. Other countries – Poland comes to mind – were opposed to the guidelines that currently are in place, and would certainly oppose further steps.

Unfortunately, although the U.S. has been tarnished by the Bush years and has lost some of its influence, it is still the major player. China is caught between its ambition to develop at a rapid pace and the damage that that development is doing.

I would hope you’re right, but I find little ground for optimism.

P.S. In the past week I have submitted a number of comments that have been blocked. One, addressing the legal decision to annul the moratorium on drilling, inquired about the circumstances under which a judge would be obligated to recuse himself. Another was a sarcastic reference to an award Marc Morano had been given for his courage in exposing climate scientists. A third was an attempt to respond to Raindog’s answer to my comments to him(?). I would appreciate knowing if the blog’s administrators have been blocking these comments. If this is not the case, it could indicate that someone has broken into my computer, so an answer would be helpful.

“Most foreigners realize the US is incapable of taking any serious action on climate change given its political culture and institutions. At least not yet, perhaps in 10 years after some major droughts cause major crop failures in the US or something similar.”

One of the things the current recession has shown, at least in the UK, is that when the economy is in trouble the last thing people want to think about is climate change. Is has gone right off the agenda.

The best time to address climate change is now – before the effects start to really bite. When climate change (and supply problems with fossil fuel inputs to agriculture) start to reduce yields and escalate prices it will be every man (country) for himself, or “The Tragedy of the Commons” as it is otherwise known.

The USA is still in a very pro business conservative mindset- it takes time for the pendulum to swing back to a reality of center or even left.

Right now the climate globally- as well as nationally is changing. These changes will most likely become worse this decade- as we pass the barrier of 400ppm CO2 mid decade, things will become hotter-not only with our global weather, but that figure alone brings may feedback loops into a stronger position.

What will it take for the Pro Business cronyism Republican and some Democrats to change their view about reducing carbon?

Increasing droughts and crop failures; destructive tropical cyclones every year decimating the American gulf or Atlantic coast (how about a storm similar to the Great New England Hurricane (1938) barreling into Long Island-or perhaps into the Chesapeake bay.

Wildfires of historic proportions sweeping the far west- into major population centers of California. Flooding and sea rise begins in low lying global cities- or perhaps the disappearance of Ice at the north pole in the summer around 2015- couple these events together this decade- with a rising crescendo -it does not paint a very benign image.

The droughts and reduction of wheat, corn and other commodities will cause food prices to rise- increasing drought will cause water shortages in Iowas, Indiana, Illinois- while the wheat belt and grazing lands of the great plains will become more arid.

Perhaps that is why the ‘smart’ investors on Wall Street are heading into agricultural commodities.

Those in Washington can continue their game of denial and ‘chicken’ -by the year 2020- their obstruction for a meaningful reduction in carbon will be muted.

This will likely destroy the Tea Party and or the Republican party for decades to come-if not forever.

“The USA is still in a very pro business conservative mindset- it takes time for the pendulum to swing back to a reality of center or even left.”

No, that does not describe the USA. Unfortunately, it does describe the U.S. Senate. At least the pro business part. There are enough moderate Republicans who care about this issue to get a deal done. The problem is with the Democrats, or at least Harry Reid’s desire not to do a deal without Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Byron Dorgan, and the other surrogates for fossil fuel energy interests on that side of the aisle.

The Senate is broken as a (small d) democratic institution. Corporate interests still call the shots despite a sea-change election less than two years ago.

If we fail, it lands squarely on the centrist Democrats and those who concede to them.

perhaps- but the republican party by in large is still more conservative then the Democratic. I agree about a few Democrats resisting a cap N Trade bill- they should be ashamed of themselves- and become republicans.

Jay Rockefeller is the biggest hypocrite of all. I stand by my earlier premise that the USA- used to more then 30 years of a ‘Reagansque’ philosophy are going to change so quickly- political pendulums most of the time are slow to change- the only massive and quick shift was in 1932- and in to a less degree in 1980.

Obama has thus far failed to seize up on making real change- his desire for bipartisanship has been a bust- and he has appointed pro energy and conservative Wall Street economists to his cabinet.

I do agree that the American political process is broken- and will not be repaired anytime soon- well until climatic catastrophe strikes.

NPR radio’s show On Point with Tom Ashbrook the is treating today (Thursday July 15) in its first hour the Stanford study on future warming in the US. It would good for people to call in and make a comment/ ask a question. This is a very good way to inform the sleepwalking public as we walk into the climate catastrophe.

“So here we are once again potentially looking at several more years of inaction. At what point do the predictions of, we only have 10 years to make major global decisions with regards towards remedies for climate change, end and head for the hills begin? I suggest we are already at that point and yet we’re all still peering down the barrel of the cannon.”

Lore (and Lou) I agree with you both. And looking at things, I doubt it’ll be just a few years that we have to wait as it seems we’d have to wait till the planets align and we get large Dem majorities in house and senate and a Dem president to have a chance to take another run at this – it could be a long time (end of decade or next decade?) as the Republicans take seats this fall.

Lou has an additional good point as well, China did everything it could at Copenhagen to sabotage things (and looking at their Coal burning its easy to see why – burning 50% of world production per year currently, increasing by ~10% per year), that’s not stopping and their not planning on it.

The reality is that the current situation is grim, with very little on the horizon to look towards (as we watch our shot at things in the US dissolve in front of our eyes over these last two years).

Its time to start contemplating what we’ll need to do if we don’t get going on things till late in this decade or thereafter.

This is so depressing. I had so much hope when Obama was elected. Now I can see a time where I might hope Peter D. Ward (Under a Green Sky) is right. That time is not yet, I still regret we might find out that he is.

What is so hard; just put a price on carbon. Tax it at source or dock.

The price of inaction is too high. The price of inaction could be everything.

(If you have not read Under a Green Sky; get to 1000 ppm and the oceans turn anoxic, cyanobacteria produce masses of hydrogen sulphide, ozone layer disappears 90% of everything dies. Even worse, that is not the worst case scenario)

Another, more auspicious correction to what I wrote before. The climate ministers of Britain, France, and Germany have decided to push for CO2 reductions of 30% instead of 20% by 2020.

“BERLIN (AP) — Britain, France and Germany are urging European Union nations to agree to a 30 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2020 in an effort to combat climate change.

Britain’s climate secretary, along with the environment ministers of France and Germany wrote in a joint letter published Thursday that the EU must target a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels to stop the rise in global temperatures.

The ministers further argue the move makes good business sense because it would promote more green sector jobs and keep Europe competitive in tackling climate change.

The EU is already promising a 20 percent cut and has discussed the possibility of deepening that by 30 percent.”

Unfortunately, the reaction I’ve seen from a Danish government spokesman
was negative. Hopefully other countries will see an interest in adopting the more ambitious goal.

While natural gas power plants emit approximately half the carbon dioxide of an equivalent coal power plant, the natural gas combustion required to produce and transport LNG to the plants adds 20 to 40 percent more carbon dioxide than burning natural gas alone. With the extraction, processing, chilling transportation and conversion back to a usable form is taken into account LNG is a major source of greenhouse gases.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas

Bloomberg reports the head economist of the International Energy Agency identifying one-half trillion dollars of global subsidies (tax payer handouts) to the fossil mining industries each year. This is five trillion per decade with the US being a major part of this scam, like the investment bank (oxymoron) give-away of trillions.

The public is forced to finance our own destruction.

The technical answer is simple: stop all “fuel” mining and associated subsidies. The political reality is corrupt plutocracy morphing toward corporate fascism. All three branches of the US government are implicated and the UNFCCC is financing new coal plants in China and India through the Clean Development Mechanism fraud.

You mean be one of the just do it group.
Most seem to see that the biggest gains in
reductions of GHG come from the high
price and recession. Why fight it. Give
people high price for pollution with a
way out with new energy from the sun.

Majority of reasoned opinion points to people
will cry even more from the climate. We as a
people didn’t prepare well. Somehow, someone
gonna save us? Oh, that’s nice.
Besides better preparation for adaptation,
we should mitigate the potential for climate
change and change the change to a reversal
of GHG concentrations.
People seem quite confused between the should do
and did do situation. So we will cry for the
big banker who falls into the climate pit
knowing all the while that it means that we as
a people make the fall too.

For many who have built upon the challenge
of say will only think that the saving is in
that a competitor fell first. Yet, that doesn’t
improve chances of fair weather or bring
back “America the Beautiful.”